Do drinkers of the fragrant and
exhilarating beverage realise the amount of labour and care involved
before the crop is taken off and preserved from deterioration and decay?
A few berries that may have become mildewed during the slow, tedious and
anxious process of drying in the sun, may violate the delicate flavour
and aroma which the grower has been at pains to secure and fix. In coffee
it is as with many other features of rural life in Australia. The men who
undertake the production are for the most part those who have gained
their knowledge by personal experience on the spot. Reading and the
advice of experts who have graduated in countries where climatic
conditions are diverse and where the labour is cheap, yet skilled by
reason of generation after generation of occupation in it, do not
complete necessary knowledge. Problems have to be faced that have no
theoretical nor official solution, and blunders paid for, until by the
process of the elimination of mistakes the right way is discovered.
Losses mount up until either patience and means are exhausted, or success
crowns the application of intelligent enterprise. Then, when the coffee
planter, self-taught, in each and all of the departments of culture and
preparation, glories in the assurance of his capabilities to offer to the
world an article of indubitable character, he discovers that the vulgar
world, for the most part, prefers its coffee duly adulterated; indeed has
become so warped and perverted in perception that the pure and undefiled
article is looked upon with suspicion and distaste.
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